News – Page 13 – Eden Theological Seminary

Noted New Testament Scholar and Activist the Rev. Deborah Krause to Build on Eden’s Nearly 170-Year History of Preparing Progressive Christian Leaders and Advocating for Social Justice

ST. LOUIS (Dec. 10, 2019) – The Board of Trustees of Eden Theological Seminary today announced the appointment of the Rev. Deborah Krause as president. Krause, the first female president in the Seminary’s history, will guide the institution as it works on multiple fronts to expand its role as a leading resource for Progressive Christianity and a catalyst for social justice.

Krause has long been a familiar face at Eden, currently serving as professor of New Testament studies. An ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church (USA), Krause has been a member of Eden’s faculty since 1992 and served as the multidenominational Seminary’s academic dean from 2005 through 2018. Among her accomplishments over this time were a comprehensive curriculum revision completed in 2016 and inclusion efforts that have substantially boosted diversity on Eden’s campus. She is also a prominent voice advocating for social justice in the St. Louis community and beyond, leading efforts like the Seminary community’s participation in the Ferguson Freedom Movement after the officer-involved shooting death of Michael Brown in 2014.

In her new role leading the Seminary, Krause plans to extend and expand upon the Seminary’s initiatives to bring people together to forge a joy-filled future for Christianity. In recent years, Eden has launched multiple new programs to advance its mission, retaining a strong focus on preparing tomorrow’s church leaders while also creating and strengthening ties to the business community, civic organizations and interfaith initiatives. New offerings include a degree program in Community Leadership and Next Steps, a non-degree program designed to help retirees to find new callings to support their communities.

“Eden has long served as a pillar of the Progressive Christian Movement, and I’m excited for the opportunity to help strengthen and expand its role in the months and years ahead,” Krause said. “The theological education provided at Eden empowers church and community leaders to explore their faith, pursue racial equity, promote interfaith collegiality and strengthen the resiliency of the church. We will work to build on this foundation moving forward.”

Krause will succeed David Greenhaw, who plans to retire in the summer of 2020 after a 23-year tenure as Eden’s president. Krause will officially take on the new role on July 1, 2020, after a transition period working in partnership with Greenhaw.

“Deborah Krause has extraordinary gifts and brings deep wisdom to this work. She is ready to lead Eden,” Greenhaw said. “No one loves Eden more than Deb, and no one will work harder for Eden’s future.”

Krause was selected for the position after an intensive search process led by Eden Board of Trustees chair and former president and CEO of Parents as Teachers Dr. Susan Stepleton and board member and retired Energizer Holdings CEO Ward Klein.

“We conducted an exhaustive search process over six months, working with a renowned national search firm,” Klein said. “After hundreds of contacts and consideration of dozens of strong candidates, we are excited about the board’s selection of Dr. Krause as Eden’s next president.”

About Eden Theological Seminary
Founded in 1850, Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, is called to strengthen the life of the church by educating women and men for ministry, enlivening critical reflection on faith, and supporting bold Christian discipleship. Despite changes in the religious landscape, Eden is thriving through its focus on working together with others to forge a joy-filled future for Christianity. That means not only training tomorrow’s faith leaders, but also being an ally and a catalyst for the community. We fight for the marginalized, for interfaith unity, for ethics across business and civic activity, and ultimately for the greater good.

Above: The peer mentors stop to pose for a photo in front of the Press Administration Building, while taking a walk around Eden’s campus. (From left: J. Samuel Subramanian (UTS), Pamela Ayo Yetunde (UTS), Damayanthi Niles (Eden), Soe, Bo Myung (CTS), Sharon Tan (Eden) and Eleazar Fernandez (UTS))

A grant from Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion made it possible for six faculty of color, from three seminaries, in three states to meet on Sept. 27 and 28 at Eden, for the first of two meetings.

The group, “Leading from the Margins,” started by Dr. Sharon Tan, Acting Dean of the Seminary and Professor of Theological Ethics at Eden, explored the family system model to see how it can help them think through agency, power, and connections.

The group consists of Eden professors Dr. Damayanthi Niles, professor of Constructive Theology and Dr. Tan. As well as Eleazer Fernandez, J. Samuel Subramanian and Pamela Ayo Yetunde professors from United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities and Bo Myung Seo from Chicago Theological Seminary. They are all minority professors from United Church of Christ Seminaries and in the Midwest.

“This Wabash grant is aimed at supporting mid-career minority faculty in leadership training,” Tan said. “It’s a well-known organization that seeks to improve the quality of teaching and learning in theology.”

They do several types of workshops with different types of faculty. Tan found out about the opportunity after being involved in another Wabash workshop, which looked at issues of race and theological education. Last spring, she submitted a grant application and after working to shape what it would look like, received the grant for the 2019-2020 academic year.

“Leading from the margins” was inspired from when Tan first became dean several years ago at United Seminary and realized she needed to learn more about leadership and leading other people in a theological sense.

“I started trying to do some reading in that and there’s a ton a business leadership material out there. I realized that material was written by white people for white people,” Tan said. “Some of the advice didn’t seem to fit and didn’t address some things that I was looking for answers to.”

When this grant opportunity came up, Tan decided to extend the idea to other colleagues to think about how they might be able to add to and talk about theological leadership.

The name, “Leading from the Margins,” came from the reality that minority faculty can feel like they are not at the center when working at a majority white institution.

“They’re on the margins of the dominant culture. There have been books about doing theology from the margins, doing ethics from margins, so the term ‘from the margin’ is not totally unknown,” Tan said.

Leadership from the margins will be an opportunity for those in the group to feel like they are not on the margin, their learning and development as leaders are the purpose, not a byproduct, of the study.

“We talked about the nature of belonging and I think everybody left feeling that they belonged to each other,” Tan said.

Niles said when she got together with the group, she no longer felt like she had to explain her thought process, what she was saying just clicked with the other professors.

“It was very powerful to not be on the sidelines,” she said.

Niles said it was nice that the six of them work in different fields, areas of interest and have connected in so many cool ways.

“We could free think. We had the fun of imagining wildly,” Niles said.

They will meet again, next spring or early summer.

“In between now and the next (in person) meeting there will be Zoom meetings once a month. Doing some reading and talking,” Tan said.

The hope is to keep the group going with an outcome, in the next few years, of an edited volume.

One of the professors in attendance was Eleazar S. Fernandez, a professor at United. He is the most senior of the group that met, and the most famous, Tan said.

“For the last five or six years, he’s also been president of Union Theological Seminary in the Philippines. He doesn’t sleep,” Tan said. “He works in the daytime here (at United) and in the nighttime here, he works for the Philippines, daytime there.”

Tan said that he’s enormously productive and it was an honor to have him there.

“He doesn’t go around telling people what he knows, he asks questions,” Tan said.

“What I wanted from him, and I’ve told him, is a comparison of the power he has as a minority faculty member here (at United), he’s the most senior one but minority in a majority white institution. To being president in the Philippines where he’s not only the most powerful (as president) but also in the majority race and culture. What does he get to do there that he doesn’t get to do here, some insight into comparing those,” Tan said.

“He seemed intrigued by the question, although I’m pretty sure he’s thought about it.”

He didn’t give an answer that weekend.

“I think he wants to figure out more about what he wants to say before he says it.”

Tan said it was a productive and encouraging couple of days.

“I think diversity is a gift,” Tan said. “People who we don’t know, people from other cultures bring gifts. We want those gifts, it makes all of us better people.”